


The Bad With The Good

by Selenic



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: satedan_grabass, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Off-World, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4474595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenic/pseuds/Selenic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is injured, and Ronon's care helps him to start healing in more ways than one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bad With The Good

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mistokath13](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mistokath13).



> This is my 2015 entry for the John/Ronon Thing-a-Thon over at LJ's [satedan_grabass](http://satedan-grabass.livejournal.com/). My chosen prompt was 'taking care of each other off-world', courtesy of mistokath13. 
> 
> When I read the prompt, my muses just ran away with it and these scenes just started unfolding in my head :) It's been a while since I've written this pairing, so I hope I did good. A huge thank you to [wings128](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wings128/pseuds/wings128) for running this fest, and also for being my very last minute beta, you are simply amazing! And thank you to mistokath13 for taking part and giving me the lovely prompt that made this story possible, I hope you enjoy it ^_^
> 
> The fic can also be read [on the comm](http://satedan-grabass.livejournal.com/33087.html), or [my LJ](http://selenic76.livejournal.com/82580.html)

 

The Bad With The Good

 

The weight on Ronon's shoulders and back was light as he ran through the forest—too light somehow. Ronon tried to ignore the sticky warmth seeping into his side as he held on to arms of bone and wiry muscle. The angry screams of the people chasing them had fallen into the distance as Ronon had sped past the sparser edge of the forest and into the thicker cover of trees, and were now nothing but faint wails of disappointment and frustration.

A whole damn village of Wraith worshippers and they'd walked right into it. Ronon should have seen the signs—the overly amiable behaviour of the 'humble' villagers, the lavish offerings of food and many pleas to stay for the night, and the hunger hiding behind the slightly vacant gazes. But his mind had been clouded by his worry for the man now slung across his back. John's breathing was ragged beside Ronon's ear, but his intermittent groans of pain were a sign that he was alive, and conscious.

John would survive. Ronon had seen a lot of wounds, and inflicted even more, so he knew the gash in John's side was not that deep even if it had bled profusely. Ronon was more concerned about the bruise on John's temple. More than likely it was just a superficial mark, resulting from nothing more serious than a mild concussion.

The terrain beneath Ronon's feet was uneven, scattered with rocks and roots, but it was hardly a challenge to someone who had survived seven years as a runner. Ronon spied a dark but inviting cave mouth hidden beneath a rocky overhang and behind a curtain of vines. That would have to do, for now.

 

~~~

 

The blurriness and disorientation eventually cleared enough for John to realize that instead of sitting comfortably in one of the Nomari huts and being treated to a delicious meal he was now lying on rustling leaves, and staring up at dancing lights and shadows on the rock ceiling above. Unfortunately that realization also came with a massive headache. John cursed quietly.

"Stay down," Ronon warned in a deep voice, which of course meant that John tried to sit up. The world around him began to swirl nauseatingly, forcing John to lie back down, muttering a litany of profanities. While waiting for the dizziness to pass, John became acutely aware of the silence of the cave, which lacked both the distinct nervous chatter, and the reassuring tones of his two other team members.

"Rodney? Teyla?" John croaked, his throat rough as if he'd been shouting. A dark sliver of fear made him shudder when John tried to remember what had happened to the others, but for the life of him couldn't. John barely resisted another urge to get up.

"Through the Gate," Ronon replied calmly, appearing in John's field of vision with a quiet smile on his face. "They were closer to it 'cause they were on their way to give a report to Weir. You told them to run for it and come back with a jumper and Lorne's team." 

John sighed with relief. That explained the sore throat; John doubted neither Rodney nor Teyla had left them behind very willingly. In their position, John would have argued those orders as well. It kept constantly surprising John how tightly knitted a team they had become in such a short time, including the man now kneeling by his side. 

Ronon held in one hand a cup constructed from what appeared to be a large leaf, and he gently lifted John's head just enough so he could pour the contents of it into John's mouth. The few swallows of cool water tasted good, and relieved the dryness. Ronon's warm hand felt nice against John's skin too. He smelled of smoke, blood, and spices, a combination that oddly suited the man.

"What happened?" John asked after Ronon had set his head down again. His recollection of events leading to his current state was hazy, but John had a nagging suspicion that pitchforks and angry townsfolk had somehow been involved, like in scene from an old horror flick. And the Wraith of course. They were behind everything that went wrong in this galaxy, either directly, or by any number of twisted side routes. John could also remember being carried, the grip of strong hands, and the sense of almost flying through the darkening woods.

"They were Wraith worshippers, they tried to capture us, we fought them," Ronon supplied the necessary details in his succinct style. "You got injured, then we ran." He set the cup down and leaned over him, carefully inspecting something on John's left side with firm but gentle hands. Running his own hand down where Ronon's were, John's fingers encountered first torn fabric and then the edge of an expertly tied bandage.

John hadn't even noticed his injuries before or the tight band of pressure that ran around his midriff. In addition to the headache there was a dull ache on his left side that John just knew was going to hurt like hell later, when his body recovered from the shock, as well as a nasty throbbing on his left temple. He probably had a concussion. More fragments of memory emerged. _Ah, a pitchfork indeed, and the large fist of one heavy-set villager_. John's body tensed with anger.

Everything in Pegasus always turned out to be too good to be true. This place had been no different; lush and pleasant, and now that John thought about it, suspiciously unmarred by any Wraith attacks. There had been something about the outwardly courteous and simple seeming townsfolk that had bothered John from the moment his team had approached the village. Their wide smiles for one had held a well-hidden, but nonetheless menacing edge.

_I should have seen it coming. Damn Wraith worshippers, the whole lot of them._

He should have listened to his instinct like he always did and lead his team out sooner, instead of trying to focus on making the damned trade treaty happen. John squirmed, then hissed when a stab of pain hit his side. One of Ronon's hands pressed down on his chest, while the other settled lightly over John's own where it clutched the bandages.

"Stay. Down." Ronon's voice was adamant, but not without compassion. John looked up at him, and in the firelight saw Ronon watching him with dark eyes. John recognized the same anger in them, anger not aimed only at the enemy, but at his own failure as well. "I get it," Ronon said, his solemn tone leaving no room for argument. "But ripping your wound open will change nothing." Resisting would have been pointless anyway, since Ronon was right.

Most of the anger just drained out of John, taking along the tension and leaving behind only the ache of his injuries. Ronon nodded in approval, and gave John a wide smile. Then he picked up the leaf cup and rose to his feet. Where his hands had lain faint warmth remained to struggle against the coolness of the cave.

John carefully turned his head to see where Ronon went, and it wasn't far, just a little off to the side of where John rested. A small fire was burning, casting a warm glow around their immediate surroundings and on Ronon who crouched near it, adding fuel to the flames. As they grew higher, John could feel life pleasantly creeping back into his limbs, heat driving away cold numbness. His head was throbbing a bit less now, but the wooziness refused to completely go away.

A cautious glance around revealed nothing much. John couldn't see into the darkness beyond the circle of light, but he knew Ronon wouldn't have lit a fire if there was a risk of it being spotted. There was no sign of their guns or equipment, apart from John's vest, the pockets of which Ronon had obviously gone through to find the bandage and any other supplies, and John's currently silent radio on the ground beside it. Everything else was either lost during the escape or in the hands of the villagers, though they probably wouldn't know how to use any of it.

To sum it all up, things could certainly be worse, but they weren't that great either. No telling how much time they had before rescue arrived, or the Wraith for that matter, if the Nomari had any way of contacting them. Either way, Rodney and Teyla were safe. All John and Ronon could do for now was wait for what was to come.

Having assessed the situation as best he could, and as a result having regained at least some peace of mind, John looked back to Ronon's hunkered figure. He squatted next to an indistinct pile of things that seemed to be sprouting small legs as well as gnarly sticks and thin leafy branches that probably accounted for the subtle, but pervading spicy scent cutting through the smell of burning wood and the damp odour of the cave. Ronon was stuffing one of the creatures with the fragrant leaves and some other, unfamiliar to John ingredients, and John found himself oddly fascinated by his actions.

Even through the haze of his concussed head John noticed there was something different about Ronon. While John hadn't really known him for that long, or maybe it was just that John didn't know that _much_ about him—Ronon hardly spoke of his life as a Runner, even less of his life before that—John thought he'd never seen the man quite so... at home in his environment.

Slowly, trying not to rise too high or put too much strain on his injury, John turned to lie on his right side so he could watch the man work. John felt drowsy. If he had a concussion it would be better to stay awake anyway, and Ronon would hold his wavering attention much better than the cave ceiling. John would have been lying if he'd said it was simply out of curiosity, but those were thoughts he didn't entertain anywhere except in the privacy of his quarters. Old habits died hard, and in his youth John had created several to hide his interest in other men that were still wheezing after years of being beaten down. Joining the military had been both a help and a hindrance in those matters.

"They won't come looking for us here," Ronon said, pausing for a moment, an easy smile spreading across his face when he noticed John's attentive gaze. John gave back a pained grin, silently thankful that Ronon had misinterpreted the reason for his staring. "Not during the night at least," Ronon continued as he returned to his task, with the casual tone of someone who had seen a lot of forests by night, and found that they held little terror for him. What little John had come to know about the man, had suggested as much as well. 

As John watched Ronon position a pointed stick with a thoroughly stuffed but still vaguely rodent-like creature impaled on it near the flames, it occurred to him that learning more about the former Runner should probably be higher on his list of priorities. The air filled briefly with the smell of burning fur, then with a slow sizzle began to settle into something that might, after a while, be considered appetizing.

Right now John wasn't very hungry. Lately he'd been surviving on too few meals and too many power bars, but there just didn't seem to be any time to spare for eating between all the hundreds of things John had to deal with on a daily basis, on top of the variedly successful or disastrous off-world missions, and Wraith attacks. His life on Earth might not have been all sunshine and flowers, but sometimes John missed the simplicity of it.

John followed the swift movement of Ronon's deft hands as another skewer was prepared and wondered if this was anywhere close to what Ronon's life as a Runner had been like. Maybe it was the only kind he was truly familiar with after all those years.

When Ronon had arrived in Atlantis, he'd acted like a caged animal for the first few days—always looking for exits and peering over his shoulder as if the Wraith were still on his tail. But once past the initial shock of being free at last, he had quickly become the confident yet laid-back man John saw before him. He hadn't become any more talkative, but John could relate to that; he would pick the straightforwardness of action over the complexities of a lengthy conversation, if he possibly could.

But even in the relative safety of Atlantis there had remained an underlying wariness to Ronon's behaviour, a hint of uneasiness that had now completely vanished. Ronon was still as sharply attuned to his surroundings as ever, ready to face any threat that may come, but now with the air of a predator on his own turf instead of on foreign soil. Maybe for Ronon too, the old way of life held a weirdly appealing simplicity. John sighed at his speculations. He must have really been hit hard on the head if he thought being a Runner could be in any way appealing.

Ronon planted a few more of the rodent skewers next to the fire and then, apparently done with the impromptu cooking for the time being, got up and walked over to a small rivulet running down one wall of the cave to wash his hands. Then Ronon retrieved the leafy cup again and filled it from the same source. He gulped the water down, then gathered more and brought it over to John and helped him drink it, and while all of this was happening, despite his best effort John couldn't escape the feeling that Ronon was somehow more _himself_ than usual.

Maybe it really was the head injury talking, but the question in his mind rose on John's tongue and slipped out before he could stop it.

"Do you ever miss being a Runner?" Ronon stopped half through the motion of getting up, while John screwed his eyes shut and groaned inwardly. _Shit_.

John wasn't sure what kind of a reaction he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the gentle huff of laughter.

"Parts of it, sometimes," Ronon replied, and when John opened his eyes he saw the other man sit down cross-legged beside him. Ronon set the leaf cup down, and rested his arms on his knees. He looked intently at John for a while; head tilted, as if trying to figure out what was going on in John's head. John wasn't really sure either, but he was prepared to plead momentary insanity, caused by a blow to the head, if necessary.

"Being a Runner made it hard to trust others completely. In a way, things were easier when there was no one else to rely on but me," Ronon finally said. He didn't sound offended or irritated by the question. "There was no one else to worry about, except me." Others might have disapproved of how matter-of-factly Ronon said it, but to John it made perfect sense.

"No one to care about, no one you have to fear losing," John said without thinking. Another thing he could relate to—the more he'd come to care about the Expedition, the people closest to him, the harder it had become for John to lead them. Ronon nodded silently, and for a moment his face was once more that of a man who had spent long, dark years running away from everything, not because he wanted to, but because he had no other choice.

"But when I was a Runner I missed my team, my friends, Melena," Ronon continued, his voice made rougher by, not sadness, but an emotion John couldn't quite put a name to. "I missed having a home, a family. Someone to love," Ronon said, smiling briefly at John, and it was a far better sight than his previous expression. "And now that I have them again, I won't let the Wraith take them away a second time." 

"Well I'm, uh, happy to be a part of your... family," John stumbled a bit on his words, but bravely fumbled onward, "and that you're a part of mine, you know, team, family, and all that." While admitting to such things had never been John's forte, he honestly was. Ronon wasn't the only one who'd found a new family on Atlantis, one that they would die protecting.

For a while there was only the crackling of the fire, the smell of something slowly roasting, and the thickening silence between them. Firelight danced in Ronon's eyes, and he kept looking at John in that intense way of his that John always tried to avoid, because it tended to derail his thoughts and turn them towards things less related to keeping Atlantis safe or fighting the Wraith, and more towards anything related to Ronon. This time he didn't have much chance to turn away—not that he especially wanted to. Here there were no other prying eyes, only those of Ronon, holding him in place.

"I never thanked you," Ronon told John and something about the way he said it caught John's attention, but it took quite a while for his dazed mind to catch up to his intuition. 

"For what?" John asked, puzzled, his pulse rising in anticipation of something he couldn't identify, while the thing pounded at the gates of his conscience. 

"For giving it all back to me," Ronon replied, gently reaching a hand to touch John's face. His fingers still carried the aromatic scent of the wild herbs as they brushed John's cheek and turned his head ever so slightly upwards. The flavour was just as rich and spicy on Ronon's tongue when the man leaned down to kiss John.

John didn't even think to hesitate when he took Ronon's face between his hands and slowly rolled onto his back again, pulling their mouths tighter together. As Ronon's body unravelled from his position and settled over John, barely touching, his words came back to John's mind with the full understanding of their meaning.

_A home, a family. Someone to love._

 

~~~

 

Ronon wanted so much more than to just kiss the wounded man beneath him, but he made most of what he could of the situation. John kissed him back with a hunger that Ronon recognized, a burning want that came from holding back who you were, in favour of being what you needed to be; for the survival of others, or your own. He had seen the fire of it flicker in John's eyes so many times, but each time his team leader had turned away and smothered the flames. Now it blazed to life as John took his taste of him, and he let John feed upon Ronon's desire to his heart's content—until they both burned with it.

There would never be words that could explain what John had done for Ronon when he'd convinced him to stay in Atlantis. A mere ' _thank you_ ' wouldn't suffice to describe the depth of his gratitude for what had been given, just as a spoken declaration of love wouldn't be enough to express what Ronon had come to feel for John. 

Ronon had always let his actions speak louder than his words, but even as a part of John's team, as his friend, Ronon hadn't found a way truly to convey the profound joy of having a chance to life free again; at having found a new home, a new family. How then could he show what it meant to have back the things he had least dared to dream of? To have the chance to love and be loved.

Ronon tried to pour all of that into his kisses, in the hopes that even a fraction of it would reach John. If he succeeded, maybe he could do more than just dream.

John made a soft sound, something halfway between a moan and a plea, and raised his hips up to push against Ronon, yelping in pain and nearly biting through Ronon's lip in the process.

"I told you to stay down," Ronon told John as he as he hovered a few inches above him, careful not to put any weight on the injury. But Ronon still had to stop to admire the flushed expression on John's face and the openly lustful, if a little puzzled, look in his eyes.

"You can't expect me to stay still if you kiss me like that," John complained with a grin, hands still cradling Ronon's face. Then he frowned a little. "That was..." His frown got a little deeper. "I just wanted to say that this, us... It's..." John groaned and apparently gave up speech altogether. Instead he pulled Ronon back down and placed a brief, incredibly tender kiss on his lips—the meaning unmistakable, if a little uncertain.

"I may totally fuck this all up at some point," John started his second attempt when he gently pushed Ronon an inch away, his brow still slightly wrinkled and his eyes full of questions, but his mouth was forming a cautiously happy curve "but I still want this, whatever this is." He seemed to be searching Ronon's face, maybe for answers or for reassurance, Ronon didn't know. But he knew what he wanted.

"Us," Ronon said softly. "This is us. And if you want it, it is yours." John seemed to consider that for a moment, and Ronon could almost see the myriad thoughts running inside John's head; stacking up possible odds against making anything like this work in the world they lived in.

Still, John's eventual reply was a very typical-of-him _yeah_ , and a pull of Ronon's head that said _I don't care if it hurts but I really want to go back to kissing you now_. Ronon saw no reason not to give in to the request, but he made sure to keep John's excitable hips immobile for the duration.

 

~~~

 

After a while the pain in John's side started to become too much of a distraction, and with great reluctance he let Ronon get up and go stoke the dimming fire. But he didn't depart without another sternly uttered command for John to stay put.

John's head was buzzing now, as much as a result of the blow to it as from the recent closeness of Ronon's body to his own. John still wasn't sure what exactly to make of things, but he decided not to let that get in the way of anything.

 _This is us. And if you want it, it is yours_ , Ronon had said, and a million reasons had popped up in John's head why he should have said no.

Defying Ronon's firm order and the increasing pain in his side—he was starting to wish Teyla and Rodney would return soon, preferably with the troops to help get them out and with enough painkillers—John turned once again to his healthy side to watch Ronon, who had refuelled the fire and was now inspecting the meat-on-a-stick things. The mouth John had only begun to learn the shape and taste of let out a satisfied hum and Ronon shot a radiant grin John's way that didn't bode well.

"Now what?" John asked, fairly certain he would not escape the fate looming ahead. In spite of his earlier nausea, John was beginning to feel hungry now that the smell of food reached his nose.

"Now, I feed you," Ronon replied with frightening determination, yanked one skewer from the fire and walked over to John. He sat down and dug a knife out of his hair, and then began to pull the thing apart. He offered a slice of toasty meat towards John, who had to admit it did smell pretty delicious. It tasted even better when, after ignoring John's hesitance, Ronon pushed the morsel between his lips.

"This is... amazing," John managed to mumble in the short space between swallowing and the appraised chef making him eat another bite. One kind of weird situation had seamlessly flowed into another one, but John couldn't be bothered to care. Life in the Pegasus galaxy seemed to work like that on a general basis, so who was John to argue? He'd spent too much time resisting the inevitable. Like someone had once said—John was about ninety percent sure it was Teyla, who was by far the most wise and the most politely articulate person John had ever met—your whole life has been leading to where you are, so to not appreciate where you are now is to not appreciate your whole life. Right now, John appreciated the hell out of every stupid thing he'd hated or had ever gone wrong in his life, because they had all led him to this ass end of a Wraith infested universe, to this damn planet with its angry villagers carrying pitchforks, to this small, fire lit cave; eating the most delicious rodent John had ever tasted, and realizing he was in love with the man who had cooked it for him.

"You need to eat better," Ronon interrupted John's train of thought, and promptly blocked any disagreement with a larger chunk of the spicy meat. "If you can't outrun a few peasants with farm implements without getting stabbed and knocked out, you're in no shape to be fighting the Wraith." Ronon looked at John with amusement in his eyes, but also a hint of worry. John must have frowned at the sight of that, because Ronon suddenly licked his thumb clean and reached out and smoothed John's forehead with it. He didn't need to say a word.

"Only if you promise to teach me how to cook like that," John said once his mouth was empty. Ronon just nodded, and fed John another bite.

They ate in silence after that, and half-way through the second, equally tasty creature, John's radio crackled to life. Not too long after that they were on their way home.

 

~~~

 

About a week after the Nomari incident, John arrived at a door in Atlantis, carrying a completely ordinary cardboard box, the last of what meagre possessions he owned this side of the Earth-Atlantis intergalactic expressway. John paused for a moment before entering.

Opening the door and crossing that threshold, would bring along a whole new level of worry, frustration, fear, and so many other things that John wished he didn't have to deal with. But love, like life, would never be free of them, it just didn't work like that. You had to choose the bad with the good, or lose both.

Ronon opened the door from the inside. A smile lit up his face when he saw John, and he grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him inside. Ronon's mouth claimed John's before the box had time to hit the ground, tasting of John's next interestingly terrifying cooking lesson. There was a soft tinkle as something hopefully not irreplaceable shattered within its cocoon of paper, but John took no notice. Later on he might be indifferent, annoyed or perhaps angry about it—only time would tell. But right now, as the door slid shut behind him and Ronon's arms circled around him, John was unquestionably happy.

 

~~~ End ~~~

 


End file.
